Essai de bibliographie hippique : [a review]

ESSAI DE BIBLIOGRAPHIE

HIPPIQUE

BY

Sir WILLIAM OSLER, Bart., M.D., F.R.S.

Regius Prof essor of Medicine , University of Oxford.

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Reprinted from the Veterinary Review, Vol. IL, No. 1.

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

W. GREEN & SON, LIMITED

PUBLISHERS

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ESSAI DE BIBLIOGRAPHIE HIPPIQUE.

Donnant la description détailée des ouvrages publiés ou traduits en Latin et en
Français sur le Cheval et la Cavalerie, avec de nombreuses biographies d’auteurs
hippiques ; par le Général Mennessier de la Lance, ancien Commandant de la
3e division de cavalerie. Tome Premier A à K, Paris, 1915 ; Tome Second
L à Z et supplément, Paris, 1917, Lucien Dorbon.

"'VT OT naturally dry, bibliography is too often made so by
^ faulty treatmenth What more arid than long lists of
titles, as dreary as the généalogies of the Old Testament, or as
tlie catalogue of the ships in Homer ! What more fascinat-
ing, on the other hand, than the story of the book as part
of the life of the man who wrote it — the bio-bibliography !
Such, for example, is the recent bibliography of Samuel
Johnson, issued by the Oxford Press, from the pen of that
master of the subject, the late William Prideaux Courtnay,
which shows us, even better than does Boswell, the working
ways of the great lexicographer. To be of value to the full-
fed student of to-day a bibliography should be a Catalogue
raisonné , with judicious remarks and explanations. In our
great libraries this is impossible from lack of space, but the
plan is followed with great advantage in the spécial biblio-
graphies, of which the work before us is a model of its kind.
Volume IL, which has just appeared, complétés this important
contribution to the literature of the horse — for works in Latin
and in French. We may congratulate the vétéran general on
finishing a task that has occupied his leisure for fifteen years.
As it is a bio-bibliography, we turned at once to the author’s
name, opposite which is only one small report on a Cavalry
Conférence in 1892, to find that he was born in 1835, made
Sub-Lieutenant in 1856, Colonel in 1881, General of Division
in 1895, member of the Committee on Cavalry, and put in

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ESSAI DE BIBLIOGRAPHIE HIPPIQUE

the reserve, in 1900. Then follows the briefest possible
summary of what must hâve been a life full of action — nine
campaigns in Algiers, the war of 1870, and a campaign in
Tunis ! Forty-six years of active service left him still deeply
interested in the Army and, as he says, in the brave animal
on whose back he had travelled so many thousands of miles.
He decided to occupy his leisure in a study of the literature
of the horse and of cavalry, in Latin and French, from the
beginning of printing.

The subject-index in each volume gives an idea of the
scope of the work : I quote only a few of the more important
headings — Sales, Feeding, Archæology, Cavalry, Cavalcades,
the History of the various Cavalry Hegiments, Equitation,
Training, Horse Shows, Breeds and Breeding, Stud-books,
Kemounts, Hippologie, Hippophagie, Hygiene, Jurisprudence,
Veterinary Medicine, Palæontology, Horse-posts, Protection
and Compassion, and Iconographie.

A book-lover likes to put a new bibliograpby to the test,
so I took from my shelves the famous Veterinariœ Medicinœ ,
Libri II. of Ruellius (“ hippiatre et Médecin français ”),
1530, to find an admirable description of this collection of
Greek fragments translated by order of Francis I. ; and then the
Hippiatrique (Br^tar/nKa), in Greek, Basle, 1537, of which there
is a much better account tlian I can find in any of my biblio-
graphies, with a statement of the various other éditions in
French, Italian, Spanish, and German. The older authors in
veterinary medicine are very fully described, and for purposes
of bibliographical reference this part of the work will be
indispensable. To mention a few of the more important :
Comte Basta, 1550-1622; Beaugrand, whose Mareschal
Expert (1619) held its own in France in scores of éditions
for 200 years, thougb, as our author says, a monument of
ignorance, barbarism, and superstition ; the Hierozicon of
Samuel Bochart (1663), a learned Protestant minister, who
disputed for nine days consecutively at Caen with a J esuit ;
Bonacossa (1564); Boulengerus (1598); Camerarius, whose
Symbols and Emblems of Animais appeared in 1595 ; Choul,

ESSAI DE BIBLIOGRAPHIE HIPPIQUE

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the writer on ancient cavalry (1555); Crescentius, the
thirteenth-century author on Rural Economy, the various
éditions of which are traced from 1471 ; La Broue, writer of
the first French work on équitation, 1593; the Duke of
Newcastle, 1592-1676, a sketch of whose stirring life is given,
and a full account of his great folio, La Méthode Nouvelle
and Invention Extraordinaire de dresser les Chevaux , 1657 ;
Ruffo, in charge of the stables for the great Frederick IL
(thirteenth century) ; Lando, whose Regrets facétieux et
plaisantes harangues funèbres sur le mort de divers animaux
(lst ed. 1548) must be good reading ; and Solleynel, author
of Le Parfait Mareschal , 1664. Eleven pages cover the
“ Tçaités sur l’Equitation et sur le Commandement de la
Cavalerie of Xénophon ” — remarquable par la clarté de
V exposition et par la connaissance approfondie du sujet.

Translations into the French of English authors are fully
given, as the Earl of Pembroke’s Equitation , and the works
of Bracy Clark, Clater, Fleming, Flower, Bishop, Goodwin,
Markham, Byding, and Youatt.

The bibliography of the official régulations, decrees,
ordinances, and régulations relating to the cavalry arm and
to the breeding of horses should prove most useful.

An interesting section deals with the Carrousels and
Cavalcades of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in
which the horse played so important a part. The painters
and sculptors of the horse are fully described and their chief
works cited. Some of the biographies are of spécial interest,
as of Claude Bourgelet (1712-1779), founder of the first
veterinary schools, at Lyons, 1762, and later at Alfort ; of
Decroix (1821-1901), the introducer of hippophagy into
France ; and of Eugene Gayot, who originated the Anglo-
Norman breed of horses.

Eugène Sue, the famous novelist, whose career as a doctor
I had forgotten, figures as the author of Deleytar (1837), a set
of stories, one of which is concerned with the exploits of the
celebrated stallion Godolphin — Arabian.

The picture given in these volumes of the life and

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ESSAI DE BIBLIOGRAPHIE HIPPIQUE

literature of our Frencli brethren is very stimulating. The
importance of the subject of équitation and training, and the
various Systems are illustrated by the lives and works of
Baucher, Aure, and others. In the bibliographical notes the
complété story of the French veterinary profession may be
read. The impression is left that this brandi of our science
is on a very high plane on the other side of the Channel.
Doubtless the active Government support has contributed not
a little to raise its intellectual and social status. The position
in science reached by sucli masters as Bouley and Chauveau
cannot be matched outside of France. No veterinary surgeon
has as yet been President of the Royal Society, and no
Veterinary Professor a President of the Royal College of
Surgeons or of the Royal College of Physicians.

Students of the horse in ail its relations owe a deep debt
of gratitude to General Mennessier de la Lance for this com-
préhensive and valuable work, so full of accurate and careful
scholarship. As a former teacher in a Veterinary College I
may be permitted to offer him on behalf of the profession in
Great Britain our congratulations on its completion, and our
heartfelt wishes that he may be spared to see final victory
crown the Army of which he has been so distinguished a
member. William Osler.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

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